By Dan Ambrose: WBA junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (37-2, 30 KO’s) is going to be a race against time in his May 5th fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. (42-0, 26 KO’s). Cotto has to get his licks in early while his tender and badly scarred skin is still holding up, because the longer the fight goes the bigger the chance that Cotto will be bleeding in multiple areas on his face. We’re talking both eyes, nose, lips and possibly the cheek or one of his ears.

Another important reason why Cotto should use up as much of his energy as possible in the first six rounds is that he has poor stamina and tends to fade badly in the 2nd half of the fight. Once that happens, Cotto will be little more than a punching bag for Mayweather to pound on and hurt with shots. To keep that from happening, Cotto has to fight hard early on and look to hurt Mayweather with hard shots. Mayweather hasn’t faced anyone as powerful as Cotto before, so this will be a new experience for him.

However, if Cotto is fighting on eggshells trying not to get hit or just trying to conserve his energy then it’ll let Mayweather dominate the important early round sof the fight when Cotto is at his best. Mayweather has never had a problem of cutting or a stamina problem. He’ll be fresh in the second half of the fight and most likely without any cuts. Having a fresh Mayweather pounding on you will be a really bad thing for Cotto, because he’ll get taken apart.